


Exit strategies

by Fatale (femme)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s funny how much of his internal dialogue sounds like Stiles these days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exit strategies

**Author's Note:**

> Written a million years ago, so it's not exactly canon compliant. But hey, the fic you post really late is better than the fic you're too lazy to finish, right? Maybe.
> 
> Beta'ed by Sapphire2309, who deserves really great things for fixing my many mistakes and side-eyeing me SO HARD about some of this. All remaining typos are my fault, due to my endless fiddling.

It’s been quiet -- too quiet, _suspiciously_ quiet, Derek would say, but Scott would smack him on the back and call him paranoid, Isaac would mutter something sassy, and Stiles would squint at him and say, _Oh my god, get a hobby, seriously, bro._

It’s funny how much of his internal dialogue sounds like Stiles these days.

 

\---

 

Derek reads a lot. It’s not because he has nothing better to do. It isn’t. He’s read almost everything of interest in the library. He haunts the bookstore until closing time, until he feels all the employees eyeballing him balefully. 

He occasionally buys books so the employees won’t completely hate him and lines them up on the floor by the wall in his apartment. The second time Stiles knocks over a precariously tall stack with an alarmed squawk, he says, “Dude, have you heard of a bookshelf?” 

“Shut up,” Derek snaps as Stiles picks up the books, stacks them back up lopsided and all out of order. 

“Sorry to mess with your, uh,” Stiles casts a pitying look around the loft, “feng shui.”

Derek looks around, notices the brown water stains down the back wall, the window that got busted out a month ago that he and Isaac taped cardboard over, the rusty table he eats off of every day.

 _Jesus Christ_ , Derek thinks, his place is kind of wrecked. 

The next day, Derek buys a bookshelf, nothing fancy, and assembles it that night. Not because Stiles suggested it -- it just makes sense. It’ll be easier to find his books, get the one he wants without having to pull it from the bottom of the stack, listening to Isaac snort softly when he accidentally knocks them all over. It’s responsible; it’s what normal, adult people do.

Derek puts it together wrong twice before sighing, irritated, and unfolding the instructions. Isaac watches him silently, then says, “This is like a metaphor for your life, you know.”

“Fuck off or help,” Derek says and Isaac groans melodramatically, but gets off the couch and slumps down next to him to read the instructions over his shoulder.

 

\---

 

When Stiles sees the new bookshelf -- all dark, gleaming wood -- he says, “huh” and eyeballs Derek speculatively. “You should get one of those fancy coffee makers with the built-in grinder.”

“Stiles,” Derek says warningly, and Stiles puts his hands up in mock surrender and doesn’t mention it again, but later that night, Derek looks up the coffee maker anyway.

 

\---

 

The cashier at the grocery store always coos about what a handsome, nice boy he is. Derek wants to tell her, he’s really not, bare his teeth, sharp and a little too long, let his eye flash bright and kind of crazy, but he has to live here. There was already that incident at the gas station and well -- all things considered, the court let him off easy. 

She wants to set him up with her granddaughter. She’s new in town, maybe he’d like to show her around. In a sort of last-ditch, desperate grasp at normalcy, the kind of plan that never, ever ends well for him, he agrees.

 

\---

 

Derek goes on a date.

She asks about his family, goes quiet when Derek tells her flatly that they’re all dead. He doesn’t go into details about his resurrected uncle or his little sister who he thought was dead, then wasn’t, figures that’s probably something to talk about -- who knows when, later, he guesses. Derek’s not had enough experience with dating to know when it’s not weird to drop those sweet gems on people.

He thinks the date is probably a bust, anyway.

After thirty minutes of stilted conversation where she asks him what he does for a living (he’s unemployed), what he wants to do with his life (survive until the next day), hobbies (killing mostly, and once, macramé), Derek’s noticeably sweating in his dinner jacket. 

He excuses himself to go to the bathroom and barely keeps himself from leaping out the ground floor window. He splashes cold water on his face, gives himself a little pep talk in the mirror. It doesn’t work, but he goes back out because he doesn’t want to be a complete asshole.

When he gets back to the table, it’s empty.

 

\---

 

“You could go to a club,” Isaac suggests.

“What kind of club?” Derek asks, deeply suspicious. His mind is already awhirl with thoughts of what kind of horribleness Isaac could have fallen in with while Derek wasn’t paying attention -- werewolf circus freaks, Turkish assassins, the possibilities are terrifying. 

Who knows what kind of trouble Isaac’s gotten into in a misplaced desire to belong, an endless quest for affection and acceptance. Poor Isaac. 

_Some people have real issues_ , Derek thinks.

“Never mind,” Isaac sighs. 

 

\---

 

Stiles stops by to talk. It’s summer, school’s out. Derek remembers his summers in high school -- the freedom away from classes, the eventual boredom. What little time Scott isn’t working with Deaton, he’s spending kind of stalking Allison -- again, _issues_ \-- which seems to leave Stiles with more time than he knows what to do with.

“What do you do all day?” Stiles asks Derek from where he’s lazing on the couch, shirt rucked up a bit, exposing a pale sliver of belly.

Derek puts down his book. “Stuff,” he says.

“Yeah?” Stiles asks, interested, lolling his head around to look at Derek. 

“Important stuff,” Derek insists, then reminds himself to be cool. He mostly reads, actually, sometimes walks around a bit, gets coffee, but Stiles doesn’t need to know that.

“We could do stuff together,” Stiles says.

For whatever reason, Stiles blushes -- a pink flush that starts on his neck and rises to his cheeks, the tips of his ears.

“I guess,” Derek says slowly. If Stiles is going to start coming with him, he’s going to have to think of more interesting things to do than feed the pigeons in the park.

 

\---

 

They go to a movie the next day, something about robots. It’s not that it isn’t interesting, it’s just that Derek keeps getting distracted by Stiles, who is just the worst person in the history of the world to see a movie with. He talks during quiet moments, he laughs too loud, he scratches his nose. Okay, the last thing isn’t actually that big of a deal, but when there are fifty people coughing and scratching their noses in close proximity, it’s uncomfortable. 

After the movie, Stiles is talking excitedly when his stomach grumbles loudly. Derek suggests they get a bite to eat and he’ll pay, whatever, his treat. 

Stiles talks about his dad mentioning body parts going missing in the cemetery, asks whether it could be anything supernatural. Derek doesn’t know, but he doesn’t want to admit it. It could be people doing weird sex things. It’s gross, but not a punishable by death offense, so it’s not really any of his business. 

He tells Stiles to look it up in the bestiary and he’ll do some digging around, just to be sure.

Stiles goes home and Derek pores over the paper, surfs the internet, reads Wikipedia for too long and thinks morosely that he’s going to have to get a job if something doesn’t need killing really soon.

 

\---

 

Something needs killing. 

They’re chasing what Stiles believes to be an honest to god necromancer, and part of Derek wants to tell them to knock that nasty shit off, but another larger part of him is pathetically grateful to have something to do other than worry about Stiles, what spending increasing amounts of time together means, and what Scott and the rest of the pack plan to do after graduation. If they plan to leave him.

Stiles had found a pattern, gotten a lead, called Derek, then Scott, and Derek tries not to read too much into the fact that Stiles called him first. 

That’s basically how they end up in the woods at midnight, reenacting every horror movie Derek has ever seen, and he says as much to Stiles.

Stiles laughs a little breathlessly. “At least the virgin is always the last to die.” His footsteps falter, he slows and a shadow passes over his face. He laughs again, but it’s sharp, unhappy.

Now that they’ve stopped moving, Stiles shivers. It’s still summer, but the temperature drops significantly at night. It doesn’t bother Derek, but while Stiles isn’t small, he’s just -- well, more _fragile_. He’d probably punch Derek in the nuts if he ever said it out loud, though.

“Where’s your jacket?” Derek asks. He doesn’t mean to make it sound like an accusation, but that’s how it comes out. Laura had been right, his manners do kind of suck.

Stiles gestures at the expanse of his body. “And ruin the lines of my lovely ensemble?”

“Yeah, you’ll make a lovely corpse, I’ll let the necromancer know you’ll be available soon,” Derek says, his eyes tracking down Stiles’ body anyway, across the slim silhouette of his shoulders, the narrow boy-hips. He blows out a breath, irritated. Derek doesn’t even know how he and Stiles became default partners in their crackpot gang. Scott and Allison always pair up together, and more recently, Isaac’s been joining in with them, the three of them passing secret looks between themselves. Derek can practically _smell_ the teen angst and hormones rolling off them. Gross.

Derek hears the sound of Stiles’ teeth chattering and without thinking, he takes off his leather jacket and tosses it at Stiles, who catches it with a soft _oof_. 

“How do you manage to be a dick even while doing something nice?” Stiles demands, glaring, but putting on the jacket anyway. Dignity and self-righteous anger take second place to comfort, apparently. Stiles sighs a little as he wraps the coat around himself. “You’re better than a space heater, seriously.”

“Glad I’m good for something,” Derek says as he continues to scan the woods.

“That not--,” Stiles says and cuts himself off. “Thanks, Derek,” he says quietly instead.

 

\---

 

“Zombie,” Stiles says, blinking at the monstrosity before him: At about eight feet tall, it’s technically human, in the same way that a mountain is just a lot of dirt and a tornado is a really strong breeze. Mismatched limbs haphazardly sewn together, blackened blood oozing sluggishly from every stitched cut, it moves jerkily, fingers flexing open and closed, and makes a dry, painful rumble deep inside its chest that makes all the hairs on Derek’s arms stand on end.

The missing eyelids and lips are probably the creepiest, though.

“That’s not a zombie,” Derek says and licks his lips nervously.

“Reanimated corpse,” Stiles says, “pretty sure that’s a zombie.”

“I -- don’t zombies eat brains?” 

“Oh, fuck, I don’t know, Derek,” Stiles says, “but we should probably run before we find out what this bastard eats.”

“Right,” Derek says and grabs Stiles’ arm as they run through the woods, stumbling over raised roots and skidding on damp leaves.

 

\---

 

He’s not stupid, he knows Stiles has a thing for him. When he gets his coat back at the end of the night, it smells sour, musky, like lust and nervousness shot through with a healthy dose of terror. He’s tempted to shut it down, because someone is going to eventually teach Stiles that life doesn’t work like that, easy and happy, where people walk around getting what they want.

But then, Stiles isn’t him and Stiles has already let go of too much in his life. Stupid childhood crushes, hopes and dreams -- those things always fall away in favor of more practical things in the face of survival, in Derek’s experience.

Derek can let him have this, maybe. Until he finds someone more appropriate. 

He pulls on the jacket, and yanks the sleeves over his knuckles like he did when he was little. On his fourteenth birthday, his dad had taken the jacket off, wordlessly handing it to him, and Derek slid it on, curled his fists inside the sleeves, feeling tough and untouchable. Back when he thought that a bit of leather, no more than a scrap of fabric, made him a man. 

\---

 

When he gets back to his loft, it’s empty. 

Isaac moved back in about five months ago when things started getting really weird between him and Scott. Derek doesn’t know why he bothered since he’s pretty sure Isaac just sneaks over there every other night, but he’s glad for the occasional company, so he can’t complain. 

Derek should probably have a sex talk with him, make sure he’s being safe, but he can’t bring himself to do it, would honestly rather eat ground glass than have that level of awkward conversation with anyone at all, let alone a member of his pack. And who is Derek to be lecturing anyone on safety -- or sex? What does Derek know about being safe _or_ about sex? _Nothing good_ , he thinks, grimly.

Derek cleans up the apartment, shuffles all his crap into more aesthetically pleasing piles. Stiles is coming over later to hang out. Maybe they’ll order pizza again.

 

\---

 

Stiles complains that Derek’s TV is too small. Derek wants to tell him if it’s so damn small, he can go home and watch his own TV, thanks, but he grunts, watches the way Stiles eats his pizza, picking all the olives off first and eating them one by one and then rolling the slice up and finishing it in three enormous disgusting bites.

Derek’s not in love with Stiles. Most days he feels like shaking him until his head rolls around like a little bobble-headed doll, but sometimes when Stiles laughs hysterically, loudly, at a movie he’s seen half a dozen times, or eats his pizza in the weirdest, most finicky way a person could eat a food meant to be consumed with bare hands, Derek looks over at him and thinks, _Yeah_ and _maybe_ and _one day_.

 

\---

 

Derek knew it was bound to happen. Stiles had been progressively sitting closer and closer to him while they watched movies, Derek tensed beside him, waiting. He’s just surprised that Stiles went for it, actually kissed him on the mouth instead of yawning and placing an arm around his shoulders like Derek’s a shy cheerleader who has never done anything like this before.

Derek lets Stiles’ mouth rest against his for a moment, holds himself completely still, willing his mind blank so he doesn’t think about the warm pressure of Stiles’ mouth, the drag of his chapped lips, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the dark smudge of his eyelashes this close up.

Stiles pulls back, embarrassment radiating off him in sickening waves and Derek is immediately sorry, opens his mouth to say something, anything, but he’s stuck. Doesn’t know what to say to get Stiles back to what they had before.

So he stares, waiting for a stammered apology, but Stiles’ mouth turns down, and his eyes flash, bright, angry. “Look -- I know you don’t _love_ me or whatever, and trust me, buddy, it’s mutual--” the air vibrates with untruth, Derek can practically taste it “--but you’re at least _attracted_ to me, I can tell. And like, it felt like we were, you know, getting somewhere.”

Derek fights the urge to run, his heart hammering in his chest painfully fast, and he wants nothing so much as to cut his losses and say, _Oh well, I tried_ , curl up in a tight ball and give up completely. But he’s never been able to run in the face of abject terror, even when his instincts kick into survival mode. When the knowledge that he’s irrevocably fucked this up, ruined the only good thing he has going in his life, works its way into his bones, leaving him heavy, exhausted, and sick with dread.

“It’s not -- that. You’re just a kid,” Derek tries.

Stiles’ face goes pale, his bottom lip trembles a little and Derek feels a deep stab of triumph.

“Fuck you,” Stiles says. “Like you’re such a great example of a well adjusted adult.”

It’s fair, but it still hurts. 

“You’ll get over this,” Derek says, voice quiet, worn, chest tight. 

“We’ll see,” Stiles mutters, shivering and looking away.

 

\---

 

Derek is on the couch watching TV when Isaac gets home. He takes one look at Derek’s face and says, “Aw, shit.”

Derek’s inclined to agree. 

Isaac sits down next to him, and Derek resists the urge to shift closer, just for contact, warmth. 

“It’s like watching two people play chicken,” Isaac says after a minute, lightly, conversationally. “One person needs to swerve, tap out, whatever, but you’re both too stupid to. And then you go--BOOM,” he says, hands splayed out, mimicking a bomb exploding in mid-air. 

“Well, I’ve tapped out,” Derek snaps. It’s been a long day, he doesn’t need to be lectured about his shitty love life by a judgmental teenager. 

“Right,” Isaac says, with deep significance.

“Don’t you have some kind of unspeakably awkward threesome to get to?” Derek asks, just out of spite. Spending time with teenagers is making him progressively less mature.

“Oh, yeah -- _that_ ,” Isaac says and scratches the back of his neck. 

Derek feels meanly satisfied for about a second, then promptly ashamed, because he’s just a kid and Derek’s had more years to get his shit together, but hasn’t done any better, and there’s no good reason to be a jerk about it. 

 

\---

 

The next morning, Derek starts to straighten up before he realizes Stiles probably isn’t coming over. He lays on the couch, watches Cartoon Network too long, eventually breaks down and applies for a job.

 

\---

 

It’s nothing big, it’s just shelving books at the public library. The interview is pretty non-existent. Derek gets the distinct impression they’re just grateful to find someone who can spell who’s willing to work for such crap pay. When Derek tells Isaac how much he makes, Isaac laughs and laughs. 

Isaac starts calling it Derek’s volunteer job, even after Derek explains that it’s 100% more than Isaac makes, but it gets him out of the house and it feels good to get a paycheck. Plus, they’re not picky if he has to call in for a shift.

 

\----

 

The thing about Zombies -- reanimated corpses, whatever, Stiles -- is that they can be stopped, but not killed, exactly. Tearing one apart doesn’t actually do shit if you can’t catch the person who did the animating in the first place. It’s not that hard to narrow down the list of suspects. Derek’s found that mass murderers in Beacon Hills tend to a) be new in town, b) be attractive, c) have crazy eyes and d) be attracted to him. Any two of these is a strong indicator, but the probability of evilness goes up exponentially with each item they fit.

Scott and Stiles are luring the thing to the old distillery to trap it with a ring of mountain ash, with Stiles as the bait and Scott as backup, while Derek tracks the scent of the woman, who calls herself Circe and has managed to bring something to life straight out of all of Derek’s worst fucking nightmares. He knows her scent well. He went on a date with her. God. At least he didn’t sleep with her.

When he objected to the plan, Stiles had looked at him with hard eyes and asked if Derek had a better idea. 

Derek’s phone buzzes and he slips it out of his pocket. It’s a perfunctory text from Isaac: _Got her, it’s done._

Derek heads back to the distillery, breaks into a run when he smells the blood still thirty yards out. Underneath the stench of putrid, rotting flesh, the fresh scent of human blood fills his nose, burns his sinuses. _Stiles._

There’s a small mass on the floor, back turned to him. The moonlight glints on dark brown hair and Derek drops to his knees.

“Stiles, Stiles,” Derek says, his voice strange, gasping, unrecognizable to his own ears. He reaches out a trembling hand, rolls Stiles over.

Stiles blinks up at him, grins a little. “Took your damn time,” Stiles says, then coughs and his breath makes a funny, rattling sound that Derek knows means something unseen and broken inside of Stiles. Derek’s fingers scrabble against the cold cement floor to tangle in Stiles’. Behind him, a small gasp and the sound of Allison’s hunting boots followed by Isaac tennis shoes moving towards him. Derek waves them away, motions them towards Scott. He spares a glance for Isaac, his mouth smeared red with blood and violence, but only one. Alison and Scott’s pulses thrum steadily in the background. 

All the rest of his attention is for Stiles.

“Do something for me--”

He squeezes Stiles’ hand, bites the inside of his cheek to keep from saying, _Anything, anything at all._

“Scott,” Stiles says. “Check on him, please, Derek--”

“He’s fine, Allison and Isaac are with him,” Derek rasps, nearly babbles. “You’re going to be okay, Stiles.”

He could bite him, but it wouldn’t be fast enough, and without knowing the extent of the damage--

“Dude,” Stiles says, grinning, then wincing as it pulls at his split lip, “I’m just winded, cracked a rib or something, I’m not going to _die_. Jesus, calm down.”

“What did I tell you about calling me dude,” Derek manages, his voice embarrassingly wobbly.

“I get that we’re having a moment here and this is really touching,” Stiles says, “but I think I should probably go to the hospital now.”

God fucking help him -- God help them _both_ , they’re going to need it -- but Derek loves him.

 

\---

 

Derek’s spent the majority of his life choosing between options that mostly suck, a decade of deciding who he would rather hurt -- himself or someone else. Most of the time his choice has always been himself, but others always seem to get dragged into his messes, and everything always goes wrong. Maybe if he chooses what he wants, makes a plan, follows through, everything will be okay. Maybe this time he’ll get Stiles and get to keep him.

Derek’s got a mostly clean apartment, an extremely checkered dating history, and a certificate of completion from court ordered anger management classes that says he’s done everything he can with his mess of a life. 

He figures he’s basically as good as he’s going to get.

 

\---

 

He picks up flowers at a gas station. It’s admittedly a little pedestrian for someone who has seen as much excitement in his life as Stiles, but hey, Derek already kind of feels like a boob for buying flowers for another dude. He twists them anxiously in his hands, hears the cellophane creak ominously and tries to flatten it back out.

When Stiles answers the door, his face is mottled with shadows that promise to be spectacular bruises later. And for one moment, a second that could fit on the tip of a pin, Derek’s filled with a wholly unfamiliar rush of warmth for the fact that Stiles is in front of him, whole, bruised and still kind of pissed off looking but mostly okay. The relief suffuses his body, makes him weak in the knees and he has to clutch at the doorframe to keep upright. 

Derek thrusts the mangled flowers wordlessly at Stiles.

“What’re these?” Stiles says, taking the offered flowers like Derek just handed him a bouquet of poisonous snakes.

“Uh, carnations, I guess,” Derek says, like he doesn’t know what goddamn carnations look like.

“Are they,” Stiles says slowly, “evil carnations? Magic carnations you want me to research?”

“No, just regular shitty carnations,” Derek says, kind of wishing the floor would open and swallow him up. He regrets this, he regrets this whole stupid idea so much. 

Stiles blinks at him.

Mountains of regret. Epic, really. People will write tragic and hilarious poems about this moment years later.

“Ah--” Stiles says, at a loss for words. “Thanks?” he manages, finally.

“Yeah, no problem,” Derek says, furiously wondering if he can play this off as a joke. Kind of a _hey, saw these ugly flowers, thought of you_ thing. Stiles would be able to do it, but Derek’s not funny enough in an obvious way. He’s not even sure he’s funny in a secret way. 

“I’m going to go,” Derek says instead.

“As lovely and deeply uncomfortable as this conversation has been,” Stiles says lightly, edging backwards, hand poised to shut the door.

“I don’t hate you,” Derek says quickly.

“That’s -- great.” Stiles goes still, squints a little at Derek before his face clears, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Are you -- are you trying to tell me you _like_ me?”

“Let’s not get carried away,” Derek says. “I’m just admitting I maybe don’t find you horrible.”

Stiles does smile then; it does funny things to Derek’s chest and the leaden weight he’s been carrying around in his stomach for days doesn’t go away, exactly, but feels more -- bearable. 

“God, you suck so much at this,” Stiles huffs.

“Yeah,” Derek agrees, feeling some more of the tension bleed out of his body.

There’s a slight pause and then Stiles says, “You’re really lucky I find socially unacceptable behavior kind of a turn on.”

“That _is_ good news for me,” Derek murmurs, leaning close enough to feel Stiles’ breath ghost across his cheek, hear the unsteady pulse in his wrists, his neck.

“Ugh, Derek, you’re awful,” Stiles breathes, voice hitching slightly at the end. 

“I know,” Derek says and pulls Stiles close.

 

\---

 

Derek makes poor decisions, okay, fuck, he _knows_. But he has Stiles now, who generally thinks these things through, and who, at the very least, makes Derek want to do better, _be_ better. 

But maybe that’s not so special, maybe that’s just what you do -- find someone who makes you a little bit of a better version of yourself -- like some kind of secret to being an adult that everyone knows, has always known, but conveniently forgot to tell Derek. Maybe Laura would have clued him in, if she’d lived.

Derek thinks there’s no real roadmap to the perfect life, no guide to growing up, no one to say when you’ve arrived. With no real destination in mind, you stumble through bad times, good times, hold on tight to what you have and hope for the best. 

Life is good -- it’s great, actually. He thinks this is what happiness feels like, if happiness is finding someone equally to slightly less fucked-up than yourself, having them hold you close, press kisses over your cheeks and lips, while saying, “Sure, dude, you’re really weird, but I guess I love you anyway.” 

 

 

The end.

**Author's Note:**

> Come kick it on tumblr [with me](http://unrestrainedlyexcessive.tumblr.com/).


End file.
